


the crash was so unkind

by green_postit



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: College, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:02:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_postit/pseuds/green_postit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He drags you to the basement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the crash was so unkind

Sophomore year.

Phi Fi party. January. 

It's 62 degrees outside, sweater weather for California. You wear a scarf and try not to flush whenever he tugs it, pulls the wool taut against your throat. If you imagine hard enough, you can feel his hands on your neck, tight and dangerous.

You don't know anyone there, the invite scribbled on your dry-erase board that morning. You both go because you have nothing better to do and you need to get out of the dorm. 

You make the usual rounds, pump the keg, play beer pong. You're six cups in when he tugs you away from Sarah—Jenny, maybe Kelly. You don't remember her name, but know her eyes were green like frosted-mint chocolate. 

He drags you to the basement. 

The music's blissfully muted, a low vibration in the floor. Everything's quiet, dulled, devoid of the people who're outside and loud and getting drunker by the second. 

There's a ripped banner _Y2K'll take it away!_ , deflating balloons scotched taped to the walls, silver foil rolled up in clumps in the corners; New Years decorations left to throw themselves away. 

You both slip on plastic sheeting. 

Your drinks shower down on you like alcoholic rain. You have rum and coke in your eyes and beer on your lips. He laughs and laughs; coke slides down the side of his cheek.

You see a bottle cap, a band aide, and a nickel under a dresser—dust everywhere. The hardwood's filthy and the rug smells like musty books and dirt, like bleach and popcorn. 

It rubs the back of your neck raw, but you won't move. 

Bryce has been stone drunk for the last three hours.

You barely feel guilty when you roll on top of him and kiss him until you can taste him on the back of your tongue.

\--

Before.

You jerk off in the showers every morning, water spray louder than your grunts, cheek against cold tile. You can only come if you think about his pink mouth swollen around your cock, about his curls twisted around your knuckles.

You try to stop. 

It's not easy, but you try. 

You stop inhaling his scent on the sweaters he borrows without asking; you stop hoping for his coffee and encouragement during crunch week. You stop waiting for him after the classes he never attends but says he does. You make plans with guys in Chem 325, loud enough for him to hear.

You hide the disappointment when Chuck cancels and spends time with people you've never heard of and hate on principle. 

Your want is an explosive spiral that coils through your body, unsatisfied and agonizing.

It's cutting your losses before it's too late.

\--

Sophomore year.

Dandy Warhol's concert. Troubadour's.

The band's a bust—drunk. They forget the chords to their songs, restart often, keep drinking. You want to leave. You're broke and your beer's been empty for the last two mangled songs. 

You push off the bar, leave him there. Bathroom then back to the dorms. You wonder how people could listen to the trans-Indian fusion bullshit excuse for music. 

Then you see the coke.

People around you take bumps in plain sight. They open little mint tins and inhale, wipe the excess powder from the corners of their nose, rub it on their teeth, lick the pads of their fingers like it's melting candy.

You piss, zip and wash up in record time. You see him through the crowd, still at the bar, finishing his drink. He's completely wasted, one shot for every band blunder. He smiles and drunkenly waves at you. 

Your body flushes at once, expands in your gut like a stain. 

She catches you off guard, grabs your shoulders, grabs your cheeks, nails dig in deep. Her tongue is heavy and slippery and intrusive in your mouth, paper pressed against your pallet. 

You push her off, swallow by accident, cough, peel a tiny square of paper off your tongue with pinched fingers. You curse, spit again. Drugged. Your mouth tastes like charcoal and bubblegum lipchap. You already feel dizzy and warm, coils of heat radiating under your skin.

You stumble forward, head down, eyes closed. You know you're going toward him. You're a compass and he's your magnetic north.

You collide with his chest, you hear him grunt out vodka scented air. You buzz electric with every touch, the hairs on your arms static charged. He feels so good against you, makes your dick throb and leak in your pants.

He doesn't move, just lets you rub up against his chest, lets you press against him, hip to knee to ankle. His eyes are clear and glazed, wide. 

You can blame it on the drug that's pumping through your system, but you know it's all you when you pull Chuck down and lick the insides of his mouth till you come in your pants.

\--

Before.

You jerk off in the bathroom every night, touch yourself only when he's out, nowhere in sight. Your shame slicks your hands right before you wash it off. You never look him in the eyes anymore.

You try to stop. 

It's not easy, but you try. 

You stop bringing him coffee before midterms; you stop borrowing his sweaters. You don't walk to class together and you don't wait for him after. You make fake excuses and you try not to apologize when he can tell. 

You invent more friends than you've ever had and you memorize Pi to the thirtieth decimal instead of going to his track meets.

You try to stop the need that grows and grows and hangs heavy in your chest and hurts like nothing you've ever known before. 

It's not having Bryce when he's all you can think about.

\--

A game.

A round of quarters he loses over and over again. The tequila stings going down, salt—bitter on the tongue—long ago abandoned. Your quarter lands in his glass, liquid sloshes up and dribbles down the side, over his fingers.

He groans, slumps forward, forehead against the table. He mumbles something you can't understand, groans when he hiccups, drunk talks to the wood. 

You stare at his fingers, sticky with alcohol and lime. You've been staring at his fingers a lot recently; at their slender length, at the crooked knuckles, the calluses from controllers and blue ballpoint pens. You've imagined those fingers around his cock—your cock—so many times that your boxers and bed sheets have come to appreciate your morning showers. 

You wonder if you'd be able to taste the salt there, if you could lick at the pads of his fingers and taste the residue of his cock, if you could feel the thickness on your tongue, the weigh of it heavy in the back of your throat, his fingers sharp in your hair. If he'd yank or scream or guide your inexperienced mouth along his shaft until you'd buckle and jerk yourself to orgasm with his taste saturating your taste buds. 

The flush on your face burns through your body, from subcutaneous to epidermis. 

He gropes for the shot glass. 

Sometimes, when you're honest with yourself, your need scares you. It's a hunger in your gut that's never satisfied, always waiting. Always yearning. 

You catch his hand before he knocks over the shooter, lean forward.

You lick first, kitten soft—hesitant. He stops mumbling. You're frozen with his palm in your hand, your mouth hovering open, filled with saliva, dick throbbing in your pants.

Ten ticks of the clock.

He shifts, pushes his finger in your mouth. You moan when Chuck shudders as you suck and suck as if you can make him yours one digit at a time.

\--

After.

You spit, scream. Your knuckles are swollen and burned raw from his stubble. 

He doesn't look at you at all and that hurts worse than the lies and the expulsion and the murmurs from the Brothers.

The word _why_ scalds your tongue like acid, has rubbed at the insides of your throat hoarse. You repeat it over and over with every blow, every crunch of your knuckles against his chest, his arms, his face, until your fists ache and you slide to your knees in front of him, fists banging his chest as if you can hammer the nail of your betrayal and agony into his heart.

You feel his fingers in your hair, at the nape of your neck, the pressure gone moments later like the caress of a ghost.

His palm on your shoulder, his nails digging under your scapula until you hiss and fall away. 

When you look up, his eyes are blank, his lips pressed tight. Avenging. He looks at you with an expression you haven't seen since you were eight years old—when Bobby Mitchels split your lip open on his foot as he took your lunch money.

You expect violence, retaliation. You want Bryce to fight and hit and hurt your body so you can push aside the gnawing lump in your chest that still loves him more than you're willing to admit.

"Goodbye, Chuck."

\--

A game.

Go Fish on a night too hot to leave the room. You're itchy and tired and almost completely sober. Your memory's better than his, proof in the stack of cards near your bare knee. 

You wanted to play Kings, something to level the playing field, but he laughed, long and loud, head tossed back, neck stretched taut. The drop in your belly stole your voice, has left you half hard in your boxers since he dropped to the floor and dealt out the cards.

Now, you collect a pair of his tens, mindful of the fact the pile between you is gone and his hands are filled with cards. You pour the last of your beer into the glass between both your knees that's already half tequila and a handful of Skittles. 

It's round three and he's drunk every glass so far.

He slurs, hiccups, asks for a three, which you still don't have. You collect a pair of sevens and he groans, knows that he lost. The cards spill from his hands. He has all four threes. He slams the drink back with drunken ease, beer and tequila leaking from the corners of his mouth as he swallows and swallows then falls backward.

For a moment, you're so blinded by lust that the sight of his sprawled body has your dick kissing your belly. Your stomach jerks violently, your palms sweaty, your want hanging just as heavy as your cock between the both of you. 

You lean forward on hands and knees, crawl over him. He squirms, head to the side, neck arched invitingly beneath your gaze. You swallow the saliva in your mouth, your lips surprisingly dry. 

When you lean down, the first press of your lips against his jugular is faint, a skim. Bryce goes stone still, his breathing even, eyes still pressed shut. You lean down again, your lips a solid weight, the taste of him rolling around your tonsils.

Before you know it, you're laying open mouth kisses—wet with spit—all across his smooth throat. He doesn't move, but his soft sigh feels serrated against your flesh.

He tastes like purple Skittles.

\--

After.

You die when John Casey's bullet nicks your aorta. 

The darkness swirls around the edge of your vision, makes your limbs thick and heavy, cement in your veins. You're cold and the pavement beneath you offers no comfort in your dying moments. 

You never expected a bullet, oddly enough. Were certain it would be in a cell somewhere in Noriega, chunks of your flesh peeled off in messy stripes, sandpaper over acid burns in Tibet, fire. Always fire. Not a bullet fired by a familiar face. 

Your last thoughts are of him, just like you always wanted them to be.

But you're Bryce Larkin. Death is negotiable.

Strapped into a white chair, deep within the abyss of the CIA, they send him to you. 

He looks better than you could have imagined, still lean and tall, hair grown out in thick curls you can't wait to touch, to grip. You get him close enough to smell, so close you could reach out your tongue and swipe away the beads of sweat at the hollow of his throat.

"Bryce." Awe, fear, hunger. Hatred. You can feel them all against your skin, sharp like a blade.

You lick your lips, hyper aware of the arousal spreading through your joints. He's back in your arms within seconds, Sarah and John through the door almost as quick. You have two trained snipers aiming at your head, but all you can focus on is Chuck against your chest, his hair against your skin, the proximity of his neck to your mouth. 

It's different this time. In the elevator, he presses against you, moans when you forget yourself and lick the nape of his neck. You're hard and he is too, but this isn't the place for the reunion you've been waiting for.

As the needle slips into his neck, you say "goodbye, Chuck", but know that this time, Chuck hears "I love you".


End file.
